New Delhi: A day after India exempted several restrictions in its international COVID-19 guidelines for evacuation of its citizens stuck in war-ravaged Ukraine, a renowned health expert on Tuesday said that the relaxations were situation specific "but do not reflect end of restrictions by any means."
Referring to the relaxation issued by the Union Health Ministry on Monday to facilitate evacuation of Indians from Ukraine, Dr Tamorish Kole said that these relaxations should be viewed as a point and situation specific but do not reflect end of relaxation by any means. "Covid-19 behaviour is to be followed by everyone until further instructions," said Dr Kole who is also the president of Asian Society of Emergency Medicine. Dr Jayesh M Lele, Secretary General of Indian Medical Association (IMA) echoed the same and said that the drastic decline in the daily virus cases had provided a breathing space to the government to relax the norms for now.
"We have seen in the last few weeks cases are coming down drastically. Secondly, a large section of people are already vaccinated which has prevented Omicron variant from spreading," said Dr Lele. He said that by and large all countries are relaxing the Covid guidelines. "Although there was an anticipation that the 3rd wave will infect many more people, we were able to control the situation in the last few weeks," he added. As per health ministry statistics, India has administered 177.70 crore vaccine doses till date.
Dr Lele, however, advised people to adhere to Covid appropriate behaviour. The union health ministry has removed the requirement for uploading either a negative RT PCR test not older than 72 hours or a vaccination certificate on Air Suvidha portal, as a one time relaxation on humanitarian grounds for citizens arriving from Ukraine. Earlier, amid a decline in Covid19 cases in India, the government last month, had also revised international travel guidelines.
India's active Covid-19 caseload at present stands at 92,472 with 1.11 percent weekly positivity rate. In its guidelines issued on Monday, the health ministry further said that in case a traveller is not able to submit a pre-arrival RT PCR test or those who have not completed their Covid19 vaccination, they have been allowed to submit their samples on arrival with the advise to continue to self monitor their health for 14 days after arrival in India.
